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From: crowl@cs.rochester.edu (Lawrence Crowl)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.sys.atari.st,comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: 32bit = 16bit x 16bit
Message-ID: <3294@sol.ARPA>
Date: Fri, 16-Oct-87 11:18:50 EDT
Article-I.D.: sol.3294
Posted: Fri Oct 16 11:18:50 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 17-Oct-87 20:42:48 EDT
References: <1912@gryphon.CTS.COM>
Reply-To: crowl@cs.rochester.edu (Lawrence Crowl)
Organization: U of Rochester, CS Dept, Rochester, NY
Lines: 24
Xref: mnetor comp.lang.c:4950 comp.sys.atari.st:5718 comp.sys.amiga:9516

In article <1912@gryphon.CTS.COM> mhatter@pnet02.CTS.COM
(Patrick E. Hughes) writes:
>I might suggest one thing if you plan on porting many C programs: Don't Use
>Ints.  Use char, use long, use float, and since they don't change size you're
>always set.  Ints, as I've seen, are consistently inconsistent.

NO!  Char, short, and long do change size.  The only thing you can rely on is
that sizeof char <= sizeof short <= sizeof int <= sizeof long.  If you want
portable programs, DO NOT USE BASIC TYPES.  At the top of the program, define a
set of typedefs from program specific types to the basic types.  For example:

     typedef char autos_t ; /* for number of automobiles owned by a person */
                            /* expected range 0 .. 20 */
     typedef int potatoes_t ; /* for number of potatoes eaten by a city */
                            /* expected range 0 .. 80,000,000 */

Because the size of every program type can be changed in exactly one place in
the source, this approach provides two major advantages.  First, it is portable
from one machine to another, and second, it allows the program to adapt to
changing needs or improper design decisions.
-- 
  Lawrence Crowl		716-275-9499	University of Rochester
		      crowl@cs.rochester.edu	Computer Science Department
...!{allegra,decvax,rutgers}!rochester!crowl	Rochester, New York,  14627